Red Cross feeds West Bank tornado victims

HARVEY (WVUE) - After tornadoes ripped through communities across Louisiana, the Red Cross has volunteers working in Caddo, St. Charles, Iberia, Union, Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes.

Crews, like the ones on the West Bank, have been handing out supplies, clean-up kits or hot meals in some of the hardest-hit areas.

“We don’t have no lights or nothing. We just need some assistance right now. We need help,” Harvey resident Monique Smith said.

Smith is one of the dozens of people who waited in line in front of a Red Cross van at the Marrero-Harvey Volunteer Fire Station. The crew was serving plates of chicken, green beans and other sides - something that is starting to be a daily tradition for some in the neighborhood.

“Red Cross has been wonderful. They’ve been great,” Smith said. “That’s the only people that’s really been coming through here helping us.”

And as debris litters front lawns, backyards and streets, neighbors say they’re stepping up to clean up their community.

" I’ve been trying to help people out, fixing things and cleaning up. It’s been rough,” Anthony Messina said.

And with debris littering front lawns and streets, neighbors are stepping up to clean up their community.

While many who survived the worst of the tornado say they’re grateful for the outreach and resources they’ve received so far, they worry about what will happen when temperatures dip even colder.

“We have blankets but obviously we don’t have heat,” Noelle Binney said. “We don’t have tons of money right now to go get a hotel. So, we are going to snuggle and make the best of it.”

Entergy is working quickly to get everyone’s power restored, with multiple families getting electricity back hour by hour. And many neighbors are grateful nothing worse happened.

“God bless us all that we are still alive. That’s all I can say,” Messina said.

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